Candy Finnigan, an addiction expert on TV, to talk in Webster

Candy Finnigan, the addiction specialist featured on “Intervention,” the Emmy-winning A&E documentary series that chronicled real-life addicts and their efforts to get sober, is coming to town.

At the request of her friend, Webster Board of Health member Nancie A. Zecco, Ms. Finnigan will moderate a Town Hall panel discussion and a question-and-answer session that starts with a performance by country singer Kiley Evans at 6 p.m. June 29.

Ms. Zecco said residents of Webster and its surrounding towns will get priority to attend the free event.

She told the Board of Health recently she wanted to put together the event because the town had made strides in trying to get rid of drugs and meth labs.

Ms. Zecco said she wanted to help people and families struggling with addiction.

Ms. Zecco said her brother, Paul S. Zecco of Worcester, died of symptoms of alcoholism at age 55.

In a phone interview, Ms. Finnigan said she had been involved in 31 similar town hall-style presentations in other communities, including a talk about prescription drugs in Las Vegas.

The self-proclaimed “good Irish alcoholic” has been sober 27 years; and for 21 years has helped others recovering from addiction.

Ms. Finnigan, 65, said she always thought heroin was “the big boy” of illicit narcotics, but in California, where she lives, at least six people die from overdosing on prescription medications every day.

In Florida last year, seven people died of prescription medications each day, five of them between the ages of 12 and 21, she said.

“If you start thinking about the stats of 2,000 kids between 13 and 22 using a nonmedical prescription drug every day for the first time, I’d have to say we’re in trouble,” she said. “It’s the worst epidemic in the history of the U.S.”

It is frightening that one could simply “turn around in a circle, take a pill and nobody would know you took it,” she said.

“You can take two prescription meds and drink three beers and go into an absolute alcohol coma from alcohol poisoning, because the absorption in your body, mixed with this barbiturate, is going to put you in a coma,” she said.

The expense of prescription pills is why so many young people turn to heroin, she asserted.

Asked about making addiction less private, Ms. Finnigan responded that when the secret of addiction comes out, there is often resolution.

The disease is incorporated with shame, blame and guilt for families, which is why, she said, the show was so popular.

The relative of an addict could relate to someone on the show, for instance, stealing a grandmother’s jewelry.

“In the company of others who suffer as you do, I think more truth comes out,” she said.

But after eight years and 13 seasons, A&E recently opted to cancel the show.

Ms. Finnigan called this “incredibly sad” because the show helped 234 families, of which 178 people are sober, a 71 percent success rate. The best treatment centers in the country have a 5 percent to 7 percent success rate, she said.

She said 286,000 families applied for the show.

Ms. Finnigan said she became friends with Ms. Zecco when Ms. Zecco worked for a pharmaceutical company and Ms. Finnigan got involved with the recovery process.

“I’m really there to educate and listen,” Ms. Finnigan said of her visit to Webster. “I don’t have a solution for anything, but I think I represent hope because I’ve been able to stay sober and help a lot of people through the medium of television.”

The panel will consist of Jayne Lepage, assistant professor of pharmacy practice at the MCPHS University in Worcester; Susan Butler, director of psychiatric emergency services at Harrington Hospital in Southbridge; Webster police, and Carol A. McCarthy and James F. McKenna, community services representative and vice president of marketing at AdCare Hospital in Worcester, respectively.

Ms. Evans’ performance during the first hour is sponsored by Christopher and Beverly Robert of Indian Ranch, Ms. Zecco said.